


Build Me of Straw; Build Me of Brick

by Larksfoot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Astral Plane, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone is getting better at Astral Planing, Fast forwarded through most of the self-loathing, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kuron deserved better, Kuron is Shiro (Voltron)'s Clone, Post-Season/Series 06, Rebuilding yourself, Team as Family, and sass is more fun to write, because others already did it better, identity crisis, with a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 09:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15093518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larksfoot/pseuds/Larksfoot
Summary: Post Season 6 - Spoilers!The Black Lion preserves Kuron's essence after the team inadvertently kills him... giving him plenty of time - and space - to deal.Or, this has kind of turned into:5 Times Kuron decided to be something, or not.





	1. Nothing

The headache whited out his vision, the ringing in his ears drowning out everything but the sound of his own yell.

When the pain moved from his head to his arm and his vision cleared, he wasn't in the castle anymore. "Keith," he said, but stopped short. Keith was panting before him, eyes wide with fear. Marmoran blade huge and quivering in the direction of his heart. It only took a moment for memory to return. One moment for the bottom to drop out of his stomach. Only one moment because the next, the floor dropped out from beneath his shaking limbs.

He fell into open purple space, his body fading with each tumble. He crashed to a ground as translucent as he himself now was. Before him a bright light flashed and he caught a glimpse of himself – no that was Shiro – turning and disappearing in the flare.

Kuron - because that was the only other name he'd ever been called - dropped to his knees right there with infinite space stretching out from him in every direction. There was nothing to distract him from these memories coursing through him.

He remembered the viscous glee he felt wreaking such artfully personal destruction against the team, against Keith. It had been so _satisfying_. Now it just turned his stomach so much he physically cringed away from the memory. He felt the guilt of his own betrayal, his weakness in not fighting back harder. He felt terror that the trigger was in his very essence, ready to take him over again even here.

He doubled over under the crushing weight of it, hiding his face with his one remaining hand.

Then Black was there, stroking past his consciousness and inviting him to glimpse the world he’d just left. He watched as his team gathered around a body that used to be his, but not mourning him, no. The Black Lion filled in the gaps of his knowledge.

So they had killed him in favor of Shiro.

Now he also felt anger at their betrayal. They'd proven they would fight for Shiro through it all. As soon as he wasn't Shiro anymore, all his actions, all the good he'd fought so hard to accomplish meant nothing.

Like a drop of water in oil, this feeling wasn't meant to co-exist with the others. But strangely, it made him feel a little stronger.

After all, nothing made sense anymore. He was both dead and, for whatever reason, not dead. At the same time. And since being clearly dead made it impossible to be not dead, and being clearly not dead made it impossible to be dead, obviously he wasn’t either. He existed somewhere in between where they canceled out, leaving him as neither.

It opened the floodgate for other contradictions he'd pushed aside, feelings that couldn't possibly be felt by a monster like him.

His mind was a jar of oil and water so shaken from the events of the day, the thoughts swam together, little beads of pain floating close but never mixing. Each one he felt as keenly as the next so no one of them could overpower him anymore.

He had no idea how long he kneeled there as time felt different here. But finally he had found that space in the middle where everything cancelled out. He was equally angry at the betrayal of his team as he was ashamed of his own betrayal. He was equally determined to keep moving forward as he was longing for it all to end. Here in the middle, where all those contradicting ideas lived side by side, he was both and he was neither. He was nothing. There may not be happiness here, but there wasn't the crippling pain either. He was determined to keep his place, to not let the balance tip in either direction.

He stood and the Black Lion trailed away from him, leaving a question lingering behind.

"I am Kuron," he answered, finding his voice. "I am nothing until I decide I’m ready to be something again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanfic like, ever. I've been reading it lately so hopefully all you talented people don't feel like I've copied you too much. The Kuron of the fanfic/fanart world, the one who gets his world ripped away and has to rebuild himself from the ground up, is my spirit animal. Your stories about him have helped me through a rough patch.
> 
> I wrote this for me. But I'm posting this bit of self-indulgence as a way of giving back, crappy attempt though it may be, in case it will help someone else to whom life has said, "I don't care who you want to be, you don't get to be that. Choose something else."
> 
> On to new dreams!


	2. Useful

Black Lion gave him no warning of the visitors, the jerk.

Kuron was desperate to disappear, not ready to face anyone from the team, but especially not these two. Keith, who he’d run off early on, who he’d fought so viciously to kill. And Shiro, who only knew of him, the imposter who stole his face and nearly murdered his friends.

He was surprised when he actually started to fade, his image unraveling into shining motes that floated out into the spaces between. When they looked his direction, their eyes went right through him. And he sighed into the peace.

“Any idea why she brought us here?” Keith asked. “I mean, we already found you.”

Shiro shrugged. “Black?” he asked the darkness. “a little clue maybe?”

The black lion loomed up behind Kuron, larger than life, and roared. Startled, he stumbled back into form, head ducked against the sound. One hand clamped over his ear, empty shoulder raised as if to do the same.  

They were staring right at him now, so Kuron straightened and turned to face them. What else was there to do? Sure, he’d betrayed them, but then again they’d betrayed him too. The thought straightened his back and allowed him to look them in the eyes. They were the same, right, equals?

“The clone?” Keith spat, his voice harsh. “That’s what you brought us here to see?”

“Black must have preserved his essence the same way she did mine,” Shiro said with wonder.

“Is she serious? Is this like when she clung on to Zarkon too?”

Kuron flinched, but kept his face neutral and let Keith rage because, well, it was Keith. His emotions always exploded out at first, burning hot and bright but quickly exhausted. Best to wait until he was ready to listen. Shiro stood by quietly too. The man’s face – besides being a strange confirmation of everything he’d remembered since losing the arm – was a perfect mirror of his expression because after everything, they were still uncomfortably similar.

“We asked Black for help fighting Haggar,” Shiro said finally. “She brought us to you.”

Kuron froze. They didn’t realize what they were asking of him. He’d found a balance between every possible quality – including useful and useless – and they wanted him to choose a side. That would tip him straight out of the calm eye of the storm and back into that awful maelstrom that was being something, even one thing.

The time probably stretched longer for them, tied to the world as they were. For him it was only a moment later they prompted, “do you know anything about her that might help us?”

They were inching closer. They didn’t seem to be walking toward him but they were definitely looming larger than they were before. Kuron backed away from the responsibility they were asking of him, until his back was flat against black’s nose.

She made herself a barrier to escape, forcing him to face this. And he had no one to ask for help.

Black remained silent; Keith kept glaring at him. That left Shiro.

“The first time you met Keith, you broke up his fight and caught an elbow to the eye. You refused to tell Iverson, even though you could have been expelled yourself for that.”

Shiro just looked confused. “Yes, that’s true.”

He was probably trying to figure out if that was an answer to his earlier question. But Kuron wasn’t ready to answer any questions until he got some answers of his own. “Why? I remember it happening because I thought about it when Keith decided to leave, but the context is gone. I don’t remember why you… sided with someone who hurt you over the people who could decide your fate.”

Keith seemed to be having a hard time staying in the Astral Plane, his form flickering in an out of view. But Shiro shone brightly as if he owned the place. “I did that because it was the right thing to do.”

“That doesn’t help me. How did you know?” Kuron shot back, desperation leaking into his voice.

Shiro regarded him for a long moment. He stood close enough to touch now, trapping him against the giant lion. “You don’t trust yourself anymore?”

“Absolutely not,” he said, glancing at the empty space under his shoulder. Suddenly he realized Shiro was holding two hands out to him and he flinched away.

“They built you a new arm already?” Kuron indicated the thing at Shiro’s right side.

 “No,” Shiro said, “I was just here long enough to figure some things out. You don’t have to stay in this exact form. I could teach you how to change some things. For example…” Shiro placed a hand on the metal still encasing Kuron’s shoulder.

Kuron felt a weight growing from his empty shoulder, an arm forming where there was none. All his attempts at composure disappeared in that moment.

“No!” he hissed, clawing at the light coalescing there. He didn’t want any arm at all, not when the last one was a lightning rod for take-over-your-mind-and-make-you-do-bad-things magic. His fear was too strong, and the arm formed around the picture he had in his head. A terrible weapon. It grew to a grotesque size, sprouting a knife from his oversized elbow, a gun rising from his forearm.

Kuron beat it against the ground, only to set the gun firing in all directions. Panicked, he flung it away from himself, only to notice too late that Shiro and Keith had to dive away from an onslaught of lasershots.

They each armed themselves with a weapon and jumped to their feet, on guard.

His skin boiled as purple light, drawn from the air around them, gathered into his hand with growing pressure. Not good. The power of this kind of blast had almost destroyed them all in the real world. What would it do to them here?

“Help,” he said, his throat so tight it he had to force the words out.

The black lion was suddenly there, slamming her paw between him and the paladins, catching a spray of spikes that launched from the arm.

To be fair, he hadn’t specified that he wanted the lion to help him. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to save the fully-not-dead ones that could still go on to save the universe.

“I’m not trying to hurt them.” Kuron grumbled, and he heard his words reflected in Shiro’s voice from the other side of the giant paw: “We’re not going to hurt him.”

Kuron was standing on the arm, stretching his back in an attempt to rip it off, when Shiro tackled him to the ground.

“Calm down!” he said, identical face inches from Kuron. “If you stop panicking, it will stop being what you fear. Think to yourself: it’s just an arm, one that can take any form you want it to.”

“I don’t want it at all,” Kuron whimpered through gritted teeth. He tried to imagine it gone, but it refused to disappear.

 “Can he kill us here?” Keith’s presence was making this all both worse and better at the same time. He may as well not have been there.

“Yes, stay out of the way of his attacks. They’re not aimed at you, but you could still catch one.”

“That means… can we kill him here. Well, finish killing him? Permanently or whatever?”

Thanks, Keith.

“Most definitely. But don’t. We already rushed into that once before.”

His hand was glowing so brightly now, everyone was averting their eyes. The noise emanating from it was rising in pitch, like the pressure was building to critical mass. Kuron turned wild eyes toward the two, fear threatening to take over the tenuous balance he’d built.

“Move over,” yelled Keith. “We’ll deal with this the same way we did when he was alive.”

Keith jammed the tip of his galra knife into a seam of the growing arm and in a flash, the knife grew through his arm, crackling through imagined connections and sheering it away. It held its form for a moment, drifting in front of his face so Kuron could see just how twisted it had grown, knife tips jutting out at every angle, hand fully charged for a laser blast, gun whizzing about in all directions, still looking for a target. Disembodied like it was, Kuron felt its tug on him growing fainter until it burst into glittering specks of purple light.

“I’m…” Kuron stopped. He’d almost said ‘I’m sorry’ and admitted to being something. He was equally not sorry. He needed to be equally not sorry. He forced himself to remain equally not sorry.

“I didn’t mean to.” He said instead.

“My fault for not understanding what that arm meant to you. This place has a way of integrating your true feelings into the things it manifests.”

All the more reason to remain as nothing.

“You still see yourself as a paladin.” Shiro indicated the armor he’d unconsciously dressed himself in. “I believe you understand what it is to be a paladin.”

He refocused his thoughts on nothing. At least nothing didn’t hurt, not as bad as trying to be something and failing.

“And Black sees you as her paladin, someone worth saving, someone who can feel and do what’s right.” The pair was blurring in and out of view, finding it hard to stay for this long.

Kuron had decided to be nothing, so why did he ache to embrace an identity he didn’t deserve.

“Wait,” Kuron said, and took a deep breath when they rematerialized.

Loved, hated, remembered, forgotten… he didn’t deserve to be a single one. But useful. It inherently couldn’t be deserved or not deserved, it just was. If were to build himself back into something, this seemed a safe place to start. Longing overcame fear.

“Black, can you help me show them what I remember?”

Keith, still a little unnerved, huffed, “can’t you just tell us so we can get out of this place?”

Kuron shrugged. “Sure. Here you go: my hand went all wrinkly and there were statues.” He left it at that.

Keith grumbled his frustration. Shiro put a hand on his shoulder and gently guided Keith behind him. “I think it would be valuable to see what you remember for ourselves.”

Black projected his memories onto the vast horizon. Indeed, they saw his hand pressed against the power cell suddenly fuzz in his view, replaced by one that was grey and shriveled. They saw the white lion jump for him and they startled away, just as he had. Since there was so much more that he didn’t understand, this way he could let them sort through the disjointed images for something they could use.

Shiro actually shook his hand, but they were losing in their effort to stay on this plane.

“Thank you. This will help us. Wait, I forgot to ask what to call you.” Shiro’s words faded at the end along with the two men.

Kuron was left alone to bask in his own damn usefulness.

A little ray of hope was trying to sneak in the crack in his defenses, but Kuron let suspicion well up to quash it fast. Hope was a short road to pain, and he definitely wasn’t ready to be something as tenuous as hopeful.

“I am Kuron,” he said though they were already gone, “the idiot who let himself be useful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I’m late to the news that producers confirmed Shiro and the clone fused into one person with the memories of both, so I guess this is officially an AU. I’m just not ready to let go of the possibility of Shirogane brothers.


	3. Wanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to be one thing really well and nothing else. Failing at both.

The next time they visited, they brought Allura.

Kuron didn’t hide this time. Not exactly. He was already floating around, doing some kind of disembodied backstroke and just didn’t bother to show himself right away.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Allura asked, her form not quite as strong as the other two, connecting in through Blue instead of directly through Black as the others were.

“No,” said Keith.

“I’m telling you,” Shiro insisted, “it took me a long time to control the form I took. Before you learn how, you just automatically show what you feel so strongly it can’t help but manifest. He sees the arm as the monster, the arm that Haggar gave him. He doesn’t see himself as anything but a paladin. He was just as afraid of that arm as we were.”

Not too far from them, three more figures formed from mist. They stayed faint as if to avoid notice, and may have succeeded if their whispered bickering wouldn’t have crescendoed until it echoed across the void. He gravitated toward this less intimidating group.

“Be quiet Pidge, and be smaller Hunk, you’re going to give us away,” Lance said.

“Right because you shaking so hard your armor is clacking makes you soooo sneaky,” Pidge grumbled.

“I don’t see anyone so let’s just go back.” Hunk did tend to ramble when he got nervous. “I mean, last time we had to yell for Shiro and I guess we could try that again, because we used to call him Shiro, but do you think he won’t answer to that now? What would he answer to? I mean, do you think he would answer to Clone?”

“Actually, it’s pronounced Kuron,” Kuron said directly into Hunk’s ear. Hunk yelped and flashed out of sight, propelled by fear out of the Astral plane. He shimmered back in a moment later, wide eyed and fidgeting.

Kuron mentally high fived the Black Lion, who didn’t exactly approve of his repeat of her prank.

Lance and Pidge stared at him for a moment. Both barely had a toe in this realm, fading in an out as they were. Though Lance rippled like a drop of water on a calm surface, while Pidge fuzzed like a radio trying to hone in on the right channel.

Then all three spewed their thoughts at him at once.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t listen when you tried to tell me things were off,” wailed Lance.

“I have some ideas about your arm if you’ll show it to me. Can you make it do the thing again?” said Pidge.

“I made you some ‘sorry we killed you’ cookies, but then I realized I can’t bring them here and you can’t eat them anyway…” Hunk began, but he disappeared before he could finish the thought.

Kuron backed away from the barrage and waited for them to lose their connection. It didn’t take long before all three were gone.

He turned his attention to the serious half of team Voltron, though he kept a wary distance.

Allura kept her face and voice diplomatic, and wasted no time. “Based on what Shiro and Keith told me, I’m worried that Haggar has made it to Oriande. But something this vital I need to confirm for myself. Please show me the memories you showed the others.”

He immediately complied. He’d already made this decision, so it didn’t feel like agony to act.

After the final image faded, the three started arguing in alarmed tones even as they faded from view.

It was fine. He understood the significance of an already formidable enemy like Haggar making it through Oriande, the power she would gain there.

He heard a belated and disembodied “thank you” drift back.

Pidge buzzed back in again, only long enough to shake her fist at the sky and yell, “You won’t defeat me, Astral Plane!” But she still didn’t have the control to stay for more than a few seconds.

And this time, the emptiness of infinite space around him felt even emptier.

 

____

Lance came back first, and alone.

“You reached out to me when you needed help and I did nothing, and now I’m reaching back because, well Shiro says you didn’t mean to hurt us, and as good as it is to have Shiro back, you were a great teammate too and you trusted me and I just, I just want you back.”

He gushed the words out in one breath, as if afraid he wouldn’t be able to say everything if it took too long. A valid concern, considering how his image rippled from the start.

Even rushed, the words sank deep.

They bored into him, fraying the delicate threads holding him in one piece. Because as much as he wanted to believe them, he just couldn’t let that kind of hope in. The conflict threatened to tear him apart, until he no longer even wanted to hold himself together.

So he just didn’t.

He let it shatter him in to a million shining bits to scatter and fade into nothingness.

He stayed this way for a long time, long after Lance had lost the battle to stay.

 

_____

 

Pidge appeared next, flaring bright as if shoving herself into the Astral Plane out of sheer force of will. Hunk crept in timidly behind her and soon both of them were fuzzing in and out in front of him.

Were people going to be popping in and out of his home without warning from now on?

“Still no cookies?” he asked because they didn’t seem to know how to start this conversation.

That got them both chuckling and must have set them at ease because Pidge walked right up to him.

“Do you mind if I take a few measurements?” she asked even as she started in measuring the metal encasing his shoulder.

“I guess not,” he said, willing himself to stay still because measurements could be useful.

“You told Shiro you only remembered the piece of one of the memories that you’d thought about while you were living as him, and the rest was gone. Is that because of the arm? Because I was thinking that maybe that’s how they gave you his memories in the first place, so without it you would only retain what you’d actively recalled while you had it.”

She zipped around him, examining him from all angles while she had her one sided thinking-it-through conversation. Hunk had disappeared without notice at some point.

 “And then I thought, why would you believe you’re Shiro unless they somehow erased everything that happened before you escaped. That mechanism could have been in the arm too. But then when you lost it you would have remembered all the stuff that got suppressed. I guess you could have repressed them if they were bad or something, I mean Shiro has only gotten back a few pieces of his year in the arena. But we could work on getting them back. I mean, if you could remember some stuff, like overheard conversations or whatever, it might really help us figure out this arm. ” Kuron froze. She’d butted right up next to the truth without realizing it. A truth he should share, right now.

Here was his chance to be useful, to show her how he got the arm, give her the information she needed to fix Shiro’s arm to never harm them again. But suddenly it didn’t feel so simple.

“No,” he said, flinching at the desperation in his voice. “I mean yes, we could work on that.”

She looked him in the eye and he could see she suspected he was keeping something from her.

Black slipped through his consciousness, roiling up memories of the time before he met the Paladins, ones that would answer the questions she was asking.

He pushed them away, hard. Black backed away with an air of disappointment.

He couldn’t do it. For so many reasons, he couldn’t.

 

_____

Lance tried again all too soon.

“So, Haggar made it through Oriande, huh? Totally explains the dark wormhole that mysteriously appeared when you… crap, I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

“Lance, what are you doing?” Kuron flinched.

“Well, I figured you wouldn’t know everything that happened between now and when you… umm forget I said that. I just thought I’d catch you up on what we know, since we’re trying to figure this out together. And you probably have no clue about Lotor losing his mind or ripping the fabric of space time open to get to the quintessence field, or blowing up the castle, or that we’re now headed back to Earth…”

Despite himself, Kuron was drawn in, feeling that friendship he’d lost within reach. The desire to reach out and even just brush it with his fingertips suddenly soured into an intense need to escape. He was already wavering in his dedication to being useful, how could he expect to be more?

“What did I do wrong this time?” Lance yelled at his fading form.

 

_______

 

Allura and Shiro came together, and Kuron hesitated. It was supposed to be simple, being useful. They asked, he gave, he was fulfilled, end of story. But ever since Pidge nudged him, he’d been examining his memories. Days and months of images and noises that were at best pointless, and at worst terrifying. Showing hours and hours of this on a screen felt worse than useless; it felt harmful.

“He’ll help,” Shiro was saying. “He’s me, and I would help.”

“Don’t forget, I no longer have your righteous DNA dictating my every move.” Kuron materialized near them. “But I also don’t have an evil arm dictating them either, so there’s that.”

“You helped so much last time. Will you help again?” Allura said.

Kuron honestly didn’t know. Without those two giant forces guiding his choices, he was next to nothing, lost as to what he would do. “I guess we’ll find out together.”

“Do you remember anything else about Haggar, from before you were sent to us? Any information at all might help us find her.”

She’d given him a loophole with that last sentence, allowing him to shield much of it from them.

He hesitated long enough for her to shoot a told-you-so look at Shiro.

“Problem is, I don’t remember much.” A Lie. “and what I do remember is…”

Black started playing a scene, the first he remembered. Haggar spoke with a druid, their distorted images peering at him though curved glass and a layer of bubbling purple liquid. The words that made it through the rushing sound in his ears were as foreign to him now as they were then.

“Black can you translate?” Shiro asked and she must have answered no, because Allura asked next, “Then can she send it back to the castle so we can have it translated?”

Kuron watched them go, paralyzed as he was in the scene he’d just dredged up. The translator would help with the words but it wouldn’t tell them how that faint zap had tested the reaction in his leg, contracting the muscles with an involuntary jolt that jammed his toes into the glass. It wouldn’t tell them how hard he was fighting in this moment to just twitch a finger, blink an eye, anything to help him escape the prison that was his own unresponsive body.

Even after the residual fear faded, fear still remained.

In reality, he was scared of being trapped once again, scared of the moment they didn’t find him useful anymore. Trapped here as he was, only good for the memories he already had and unable to get more. Stuck with a finite amount of usefulness.

“Wanted.” The word floated to the surface of his thoughts.

“What?”

Now he could clearly tell the impressions were coming from Black. She cleared out the smoke and confusion to reveal just how badly he longed to be _wanted_ by the team. No good could come of that.

“I understand,” he said. “I’m letting the want overpower the need. I need to not break the promise I made to myself. I will find a way to give them all the information I have.”

Black swamped his mind with exasperation, sharing in an instant some kind of lion parable about a lucky cub who took a completely wrong path and somehow ended up at the right destination anyway.

But she would help him sort through the muddle to find the useful, something worth giving to them.

 

_____

Lance appeared once more and before he could say a word, Kuron faded away.

“How am I supposed to talk to you if you disappear every time I say something nice?” Lance yelled at the sky.

“Stop saying nice things,” Kuron answered, and then he refused to say anything more. 

 

_____

Shiro stood with his eyes closed, hands clasped behind his back, concentrating.

Kuron watched him for a while before asking, “What are you doing?"

Without opening his eyes, Shiro answered, “After I’d been here a while I learned how to find people, or is I guess maybe feel them is a better way to put it. If I was especially close to them in life, I could tell if they were alive and could point direction they were in. It’s how I knew the other Paladins were safe, and how I knew Matt and his father survived.

 “I can’t find her,” Shiro said, frustration creeping into his voice. “I wasn’t close enough to her. I don’t have enough memories of her.”

It was the way he said memories. Kuron could feel the dread settle in as he anticipated what they wanted, what they were implying.

“I’ve broken that connection,” he insisted. “It’s gone.” He could not give up his one spot of sanity, not with that maelstrom looming so close.

“If we could just get a general direction…”

Kuron stood his ground until Shiro gave up.

 

_\-----_

Kuron and Black had just finished their solution when Pidge showed up. All he had to do was hand it over, say ‘Pidge, here’s everything I know about the arm.’

But he hesitated, just a touch too long.

 “We want to design you a new arm, so you feel comfortable having one here.” She threw an image of an arm into the sky. It was an interesting design, blending Altean technology with Earth resources. They actually intended to build this arm, which meant it wasn’t for him.

He wasn’t in the mood, “You mean you want to run simulations on me to test run the perfect arm for Shiro.”

They exchanged guilty looks. “It’s for both,” Hunk admitted. “We really do think we can help you too.”

He looked at his empty shoulder. The thought of anything appearing there made panic swell up again.

“Go on,” Pidge started showing her impatience. “Try it on.”

Black threw his image into the sky with the nudge toward experimenting with it instead. He thanked her and connected the image of the arm to the image of himself and held his breath, waiting for something to go wrong.

“Well it looks good, but really, I need you to try it on, you know? So I can see if the connections hook up to the right nerves and all?

Instead, he made three more prosthetic arms appear on each side of his image.

He really just intended to stall them for a bit, get a little courage and then send them on their way with everything they needed.

Hunk laughed himself right out of the Astral Plane. Pidge stifled a laugh behind mock sternness, “You are the last person I thought would request to look like Slav.”

“Well it’s not really for me, is it?” Kuron shot back. “I think it’d be pretty funny to make that guy more like Slav.”

“You’re kind of a jerk!” Pidge said, her voice filled with awe instead of accusation.

He almost denied it out of habit, but maaaaybe this one was true.

“Let’s face it, I’ve always been kind of a jerk,” Kuron mused. “But isn’t that only a problem when you have authority behind you? When my words mattered, being a jerk just served to hurt everybody. Now that I’m nothing, it just serves to amuse other kind-of jerks.”

Which was also kind of a jerk thing to say.

“Kuron,” she started, taking on a more tentative tone. “I didn’t mean to push. If you’re not ready to do this then we can …” But the discomfort of the conversation was weakening her resolve to stay here and she fuzzed out before finishing the thought.

So he’d failed again.

 

______

 

A form immediately started to take shape in the same spot. Assuming Pidge was forcing her way back in again, he prepared another amusing replacement arm, hoping after one more he’d be ready.

But it was Lance, and he looked hurt.

“Why do you talk to everyone but me? I’m trying to say I’m sorry here!”

Kuron had screwed up again. He should stay, make this right. Lance deserved the truth, but he couldn’t do it. He started to fade.

“No,” Lance cried, lunging forward. “not this time.”

Kuron was nearly gone when Lance’s hand reached him. His wrist formed under the boy’s hand and when Lance yanked, the rest of him snapped back together. Panicking, he tried to fade, tried to run, but he was locked right where he stood, unable to go because of Lance’s touch.

“How are you doing that?” he asked.

“I _need_ you to listen to me. I _need_ to know why you won’t talk to me.” With Lane’s need rooting him to the spot, Kuron finally looked him in the eyes. He saw so much hurt there.

“I won’t leave, I promise.” He said, resigned. And when Lance tentatively let go, he continued, “And don’t worry, soon I’ll give everyone the things they need. I just…” He had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“You just want to make sure we keep coming back a little longer before we don’t need you anymore.” Lance finished for him.

As soon as Kuron heard it, he knew it to be the truth. “Damnit, I am a jerk.” He wouldn’t leave, but he could curl up on himself, hiding his face in his hand.

He needed to answer his question. So why was it so hard?

“Because Pidge sees me as a glitching computer program, the rest see me as a source of information, and they all make me feel grateful that I can be useful. And you…”

He waited, hoping Lance would have the answer again, but he said nothing and Kuron had to rip the answer from inside himself. “You make that… not enough.”

“You mean I make you want to be more?” Lance rephrased it to sound like a good thing.

“I can’t even manage being one thing. I tried and I failed. If I can’t even be useful, how can I hope to be anything else?”

‘Wanted.’ Black floated the word to the surface of his thoughts again.

“Especially wanted!” he shouted up at the sky.

Lance was studying him again. He was way more perceptive than most gave him credit for.

“You remember how, well actually, do you remember how I have a huge family?”

Kuron flinched, failing to recall that obviously crucial personal detail.

“Dude, that wasn’t a critique! Ugh... But hey watch how I’m going to try again to help you understand what I really mean instead of giving up. Hint, hint. I’ll let you in on a secret I learned by watching like 5 younger siblings try to figure out who they are. None of us succeed at being what we want to be all the time. But most of us have the advantage of screwing up when we’re kids, when the stakes are low, and we have parents to help us learn. And you got a crap deal for sure, but you’re not more annoying than my sister who just had the biggest crush on this kid in her class, and every day just couldn’t get up the guts to start a conversation and every day would cry on my shoulder and every day… Anyway, I still love her because we’re family. And I guess what I’m trying to say is we’re a family here too and you’re not the only one getting broken down by the crapstorm around us. So, welcome to the big broken family.”

It was rather sweet, how hard he was trying to explain himself, even if the rush of words only kind of made sense to him.

“Is that why you won’t leave me alone?” Kuron asked, but he let a gentle grin show he was joking.

Lance’s smile lit his face. “Face it man, you don’t get to decide whether I want you around or not.” He grabbed Kuron’s face, forcing his mouth to open and close along with the words: “I am Kuron. I am wanted.” Lance said the words in a falsely deep voice and an overly serious expression.

Kuron pushed him away, but he was smiling now too. “Thank you for saying it. You’ve helped a lot.”

Need satisfied, Lance rippled out of sight, probably for the last time. He actually had helped. He’d kindled in Kuron that desire to be more. He would try to be more, but first he had to finish what he’d started.

 

_____

 

Kuron originally planned to talk right to Pidge but that didn’t feel right anymore.

“Black, will you send someone in before I chicken out? I’ll let you decide who would be the best person.”

He sunk down and waited until someone appeared. This person sputtered in like a popping flame.

Keith.

Glaring at him.

I don’t understand, he thought to the Black Lion

She showed him Shiro, too close to the pain, wanting to protect the others from it despite the reward. Allura, too fixated on the goal, and Pidge, too fixated on the puzzle, to see the effect it would have on team. Lance, fiercely supporting the team’s decision but unready to make the decision himself. And sweet Hunk, not ready to see it at all. That left Keith.

Keith had grown up in so many ways. He would see all sides and make the right decision for everyone. But she acknowledged the tension between them.

She appeared behind Kuron, half to lend her support to his words, half to keep him from running, and motionlessly flicked her tail.

Kuron nodded to her and started right in, “I’ve held back a lot. I remember the entire month between when I woke until they sent me to you.”

“And you waited until now to give them to us.” Keith’s tone was accusing.

Shiro would have kept his temper. Kuron had pieces of their history and still cared for Keith, but he wasn’t Shiro. He was kind of a jerk.

“Because this is what I would have been giving to a 15-year-old girl with no context to try to pick out whatever she could by watching it over and over and over again,” he spat back with a little more resentment than he intended.

Black played a piece of the memory for them. The scene swung wildly as he threw his head side to side, squeezing his eyes shut for long periods of time, only glancing the gory mess of his arm occasionally in periphery, relentless screams drowning out any conversation that might have told them anything.

“The delay was to figure out how to give you context,” he said and the Black Lion added an image in massive detail of a shoulder and arm, sections lighting up and then dimming as others flared. “The pain I felt told a more complete story, where the support rods went, what order they attached the nerves, etc. But I couldn’t exactly transfer the sensations directly to someone for analysis. Black helped me come up with this map to show what’s happening along with the video. It should be everything Pidge needs to figure out the inner workings of Shiro’s arm. And the Lions figured out how to make it digital so Pidge can try to scrub off my screams; there’s a chance the background conversations will tell you more about their plans. I’ve just pushed everything too far back in my subconscious to be able to sort them out here.

Consider yourself warned, I’m giving you every ugly detail. Black believes you’re the best person to decide whether it’s worth subjecting the team to it or not.”

Keith was watching him now instead of the memory displayed in the sky. He’d replaced his anger with thoughtfulness.

“Thank you for trusting us with this. I believe you’re a good person, Kuron.”

He really wished people would stop declaring him to BE things before he was ready.

“Not yet,” he said. “But maybe I can get one step closer. Shiro asked me to try and feel Haggar. I don’t know if this will work, but…”

Kuron closed his eyes. Yes, he would push back the fear and resentment to help if he could. But he wasn’t sure exactly how to accomplish this. Following a prompt from Black, he opened himself up to the memories, spreading his awareness in every direction. He got a faint sense of Haggar, enough to point his finger tentatively to his right.

But then hair started to prickle at the back of his neck. He squinted into the expanse, trying to convince himself that the yellow eyes squinting back were only his imagination. Just in case, he faded out of view, because with the yellow gaze came the distinct impression that he was wanted. By Haggar.

Now it really was time to hide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever had a chapter end up way longer than you expected it to? I did. You just read it.


	4. Good

Kuron stayed hidden for a long time. All the space in the universe to hide in, and he still like a cornered animal.

Black, he thought, not trusting that it was safe to speak, is she here?

Black growled in his thoughts, low and menacing, thoughts of Haggar bubbled up from deep in his memory like ice up his spine.

Kuron started sliding away from this place. He’d stayed physically close to the Black Lion, letting himself be towed along whenever they moved. He didn’t think the astral plane lined up exactly with the real world, but he felt a sudden dread at what could happen if he stayed here. Could she find him if he stayed in one spot too long, accumulating his essence and making him easier to track? Worse, if she found him here, would she be able to link this place to its parallel in the universe?

Still not materializing, he jetted away, letting instinct pull him in a random direction.

Except it wasn’t so random. Unconsciously, he ended up in the only other spot in the universe he’d spent any significant amount of time. A place so burned into his memory that he was drawn to its mirror in the Astral place.

He arrived just in time to see the soul of one of his brothers bubble up from the floor, suspended form limp. He’d never opened his eyes in life, why should he in death? He shimmered out of view and was gone. Without something tying him here, he couldn’t stay for more than a moment.

In the real world, this base was a mess of destruction of his own doing, but here it was eerily quiet. Another two clones rose into view in the distance only to disappear forever a moment later.

With nowhere else for his essence to go, he was trapped on this plane of existence. Even invisible, he was still here. Did it even make a difference whether he was solid or not? Still feeling those prying eyes, Kuron materialized and felt her attention lock onto him. She’d been searching for him, and now she was coming.

Yellow eyes appeared in the distance, but in an instant were alarmingly close. Cloak billowing out behind her, face hooded, Haggar’s claws reached out in front of her as she flew toward him.

Too late to disappear, he dove to the side, only to be stopped by an explosion from her fingertips. An unconscious clone drifted up beside him, and he grabbed onto the form and threw it at Haggar.

The distraction only lasted for the few seconds it took for the clone to disappear again, but he was already bolting in the other direction, trying to fade from view.

Two more shots of power from her hands also missed him, but again kept him from escaping.

He realized with a start she wasn’t trying to harm him. He was her creation after all. Was she seeing him as a tool or as a child? But in turning his attention to that question, Kuron was slow to fend off the next attack and over balanced. Haggar seized the vulnerable moment to dig her claws into his arm. Not enough to hurt, but to make it impossible for him to pry her grip away.

Without warning, she dug deeper, not into his flesh but into his essence.

Familiar pain ripped through him, blinding his vision.

No wonder this head almost constantly hurt in life. This pain reached deeper than skin, deeper than bone. It reached to his very soul. He tried to throw up walls but she plowed through, breaking them down one by one until she was in so deep he felt he would never be rid of her.

“Where are you Kuron?” She purred. “I know they kept your body. Show me where in the universe they are hiding now that they ‘re so vulnerabl— What?” She pulled back, leaving him panting and raw from the inside out.

Rage showed on her face. “Why can’t I find you? Did they kill you, my dear?”

Kuron laughed. “You won’t find them through me ever again, witch.”

But then he heard a sound that made his heart stop. Pidge was calling for him across the distance. She sounded excited, eager to share good news.

Oh no.

Kuron and Haggar looked at each other in a moment that expanded into eternity. A wicked grin formed on her face, spreading as slowing as the dread across his own.

She snapped into motion first, streaking across the expanse, leaving Kuron scrambling to catch up. He gained ground on her by sheer force of will, fear propelling him forward. After an eternity that felt like a moment, he saw her reaching out a withered hand to snatch a startled Pidge and feared he wouldn’t make it.

But he’d imagined himself a paladin, right, wearing a version of his old armor? He engaged the thrusters on that armor and caught her just in time to slap her hand away.

With even that brief contact electric pain lanced through him and he recoiled, not eager to touch again.

“Pidge get out of here.” He yelled, but she planted her feet.

“I can help,” she insisted, bayard appearing in her hand.

“You don’t understand, she is trying to—”

Haggar’s attack cut off his words. She attacked with a fury that wouldn’t allow him to warn his friend. He was useless, weaponless, onehanded as he was. He needed an arm, his weapon, fear kept him from it until it was almost too late. Backing him up until Pidge was exposed.

It was stupid. He knew it was stupid, especially with Haggar here, the one who had control of it in the first place. But that feeling of uselessness left him desperate.

He formed the arm.

Before it could turn against him, he activated the molten glow in him hand and swung it at Haggar. She backed away, a smoldering gash smoking on her shoulder. She circled them from a respectful distance and Kuron smirked.

By the time the witch swooped in to attack again, Kuron had it under control. Standing back to back with Pidge, they fought back like they used to do. With every swipe he took at Haggar, he took back the power he’d lacking. And Kuron almost laughed. They were beating her back.

He drew in hope like a big breath of air. Everything he’d been missing was right here, the worthy goal, backed by a force that evil feared. He felt so close to being complete, so close to… being a paladin again.

And with that, he suddenly realized just how stupid it was. What was he doing? All he needed to do to keep them all safe was get Pidge to leave. This battle, giving him a chance to relive his time as a paladin, was pure selfishness. Confidence slipped and so did control. In a moment, the arm was fighting him as much as it was fighting Haggar.

“Pidge you have to leave. If she touches you, she’ll find out where your body is, where all of you are right now.”

Pidge immediately faded from view, smart girl, but with Kuron busy fighting his arm, Haggar swooped in and latched onto Pidge’s fading form. She held on for an impossibly long moment while Pidge screamed back into solidity.

Then Haggar cackled and was gone. Kuron had tackled the arm to the ground, grunting as it attacked his stomach trying to get free.

“I’m sorry Pidge. Again. I just wasn’t enough.”

“Shut up Kuron. It’s done. She’s gone. Let’s figure this out togeth…” Suddenly Pidges’ face paled. “Oh no. I have to go. An entire Galra fleet wormholed in and is attacking the lions.”

“Go,” he said.

She did, but she hesitated, letting her hand linger on his shoulder. She lent strength to bolster up where Haggar had torn him down.

He fought the arm, losing no ground to it, but gaining none either.

He begged to know what was happening with his friends. Black gave him just a brief flash. It wasn’t going well and his focus was on the battle. The team was still reeling from their last narrow victory, and they were barely holding back the full scale strike.

And here he was, proven useless yet again. Worse, destructive. Was that the real opposite of useful? No, he would not be that.

He couldn’t just lie here, trying to hide the shameful thing.

So he stood. And instead opened himself to his memories of Haggar, and felt her presence right next to him. She was leading the strike herself, no doubt using all her alchemic power against them.

He could feel where she was. They would be looking each other in the face if they stood in the same realm. He pushed away the disgusting realization that perhaps they were still connected, even without the physical arm. He focused instead on his need.

“I need to be useful again.”

He reached forward, but felt nothing.

“The team wants me and I need to do something so I’m worthy of being wanted.”

Still nothing.

He looked deep. There was one need deeper than the others, fighting to get loose from where he’d chained it the moment he died.

“I need to be the kind of person who would do this for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do.”

A wrist formed in his hand. He gripped it hard and pulled Haggar into the Astral Plane.

Immediately pain ripped through his head, threatening to tear him apart and he almost let go. But this was important. This was a way to help. It wasn’t something he wanted to do, it was not glamorous as being a paladin, speeding through space, slicing dramatically through the enemy. No, but he was the only one who could do this, so he would.

Gripping tight, Kuron dove into the oil thick barriers she put up to keep him out. Clawing his way through, he fought for every inch until he could see what she saw. She stood with her druids surrounding her, adding their power to hers as she scryed the universe.

He was following instinct, allowing himself to be a being of the Astral plane, one with the mind of the Black Lion. Barely realizing what he was doing, he pulled his view further and further from her, first seeing the room, then the ship, then the entire battle.

“Black!” he yelled to the sky. “Did you see that? Do you know where she is?” He heard a roar of affirmation and nearly let go.

He longed to be free of the pain in his head, but there was more he could do. If he could keep her consciousness here, her body would not be able to fight against the paladins there. She realized it too because at the same moment, she fought back even harder, clawing at him until light leaked from his transparent form.

Suddenly she stiffened in his arms. He fought his way in once more to look through her eyes to see Voltron cutting his way into her ship directly overhead. Just a little longer.

But he was vulnerable when looking inside. She pushed both his consciousness and his body at the same time with everything she had and broke his grip. Before he could recover, she was gone. Now she was most certainly fighting back. Or escaping.

He’d failed again to be useful, the one something he’d absolutely declared himself to be. He felt his definition of himself slipping again. He’d chosen useful because it was simple, why was it proving to be so complex? And if even his efforts to be useful backfired on him, how could he even hope to one day be something as nebulous as... good?

The last shining particles of her afterimage had just faded once more when his arm started rebelling again.

Kuron knelt, forcing his glowing palm onto the ground. He gripped it with his human hand, trying to calm it.

But that wasn’t exactly what Shiro said, right? He was supposed to calm himself. He didn’t even know where to start with that. His friends were under attack and he didn’t even know if his gambit had helped them in the least bit.

You’ve got to work with me here, arm.

Strange how it had calmed when he was fighting to hold onto Haggar for as long as he could. He didn’t remember it even being there. Maybe it wasn’t so important to focus on the arm, but rather on himself.

 “I am Kuron,” he told the arm, battling it for control. “I get to decide what I will be.” It bucked against his restraint and nearly escaped. He held on tighter and through gritted teeth, said the words he’d been too afraid to say before.

“I am good.”

The arm quivered as though struck. He felt its power over him fade and he pressed on, even stronger, emphasizing each word.

“I!”

He said “I” with new meaning. For the first time he included every part of himself in the word. He wasn’t simply a war between Haggar’s evil hardware and Shiro’s righteous DNA. But those were pieces of him. He couldn’t be neither anymore. The only other option was to be both, so he drew them into his I. He even invited the damn arm, because he’d learned from that too. And what is any person made up of except their experiences? Every one of those identities had shattered when he died. He pulled pieces from each of them, stitched them together into a self that was an ugly patchwork of conflicting patterns, marred by a thousand seams. But he was whole.

“Am!”

Kuron pushed his past deeds into the past. That’s who he was, and _was_ is not the same thing as _am_. A lifetime of good would not repair the damage he’d wreaked on the people he loved – his family. But a lifetime of good would not be meaningless. He’d already spent hours agonizing over what could have been if he’d been stronger, smarter, better. Those possibilities were already lost to time, destroyed when the awful reality locked into place. But right now, this moment was filled with new endless possibilities. This moment, he could choose better. And he knew what he wanted to be.

“Good!”

But just saying it wasn’t enough. He needed to define it inside himself. After all, Lotor considered himself good even as he exploited and slaughtered an entire race. For months, let’s face it, for most of his life, good meant being a paladin. As much as it hurt that wasn’t an option anymore, their cause was still right. And with only 5 paladins in an entire universe, he wasn’t so unique. How many countless beings had joined the coalition, at his request even? How could he deny his help simply because it felt like so much less than he used to give, so devoid of the things he loved: the accomplishment, the family, the thrill, Black… No, he could - and would - forget his own wants and help their cause, in every way he could.

“I AM GOOD!” He yelled each word. More importantly, he believed them. He felt calm seep through every shining piece of him, even slowly filling the arm until it finally stilled. It may not feel completely under his command, but it was willing to cooperate for now. He held it up in front of his face and turned it back and forth to convince himself it wasn’t going to attack. It moved as he told it, but with a slight feeling of… sulking was the best word he could come up with. Honestly it felt like it was sticking its tongue out at him.

Movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention and he looked over to see the entire Voltron team watching him.

“Soooooo,” Lance drawled, “are you good?”

All Kuron’s remaining energy went straight to fueling his embarrassment, and he slumped over, spent. He let himself fade, ignoring their protests, and Lance’s grunt as someone slapped the back of his head.

He didn’t take the arm with him, too tired to risk it rebelling again. He released it to flop on the floor for a few seconds. Kuron actually smiled a little when it turned to flip Lance off before disappearing.

The team had come to check on him. People… and lions… and arms for that matter were on his side, the side he wanted to be on.

 


	5. Alive

The problem with deciding on a goal, was how aggravating it felt to sit still.

He had no clue how much time passed while he did nothing, aching to do anything. The physical universe surrounded him, exactly where he was and yet completely out of his reach. He was tempted to reach out and pull someone in, just so he’d have someone to talk to.

Bet Shiro never learned how to do that.

Actually, there were probably a lot of things Shiro never learned to do. And it gave him an idea. After all, no one had known Shiro was here. But everyone knew about Kuron and that gave him a stronger connection with the world to build upon.

Connection. Black was the connection between these worlds and he was bonded to Black. Or at least as bonded as a projected consciousness can be to a semi-autonomous alien robot. If life was weird, death was weirder.

With nothing else to fill his time, Kuron worked on strengthening that bond, meditating until the sky around him seemed to grow thinner. He could see faint movement behind the dark as if through thick stained glass. When it was thin enough he could almost make out a form, Kuron reached out and swept his hand through the invisible veil leaving a hole behind.

Kuron closed his eyes, held his breath and stuck his head in the hole.

And opened his eyes in time to see a very startled Keith fall out of his cockpit chair with a high pitched yelp. “Kuron! What are you doing?”

Kuron had ducked away reflexively too. But he straightened up with a grin and announced, “Hey, I learned a new trick.”

“Trick yourself somewhere else,” Keith growled, climbing back into his seat. “We’re under attack here.”

They both jolted as the Black Lion took a hit they weren’t prepared for. Kuron turned around, looking out from the Lion instead of in to see a few small Galra fighters, nothing huge.

“Get your fat head out of the way! I can’t see anything.”

Kuron shrugged. “Alright, alright. Come visit me when you’ve squashed the ants,” he said as he faded back into the Astral Plane.

 

___

 

By the time they showed up however long later, Kuron had traded his paladin uniform for rebel attire. He still had to concentrate to make it stay, but he felt it more accurately represented his place on the team.

Unable to contain excitement over his idea, he started right in, but Pidge was talking too. She bounced on her toes, ogling him like one of her beloved robots. He motioned for her to continue rather than try to halt the avalanche of words.

“From what you showed us of your fight with Haggar, we figured out there are lots of bodies just floating around, never to be used,” she blurted out in one breath. “We’re going to snatch one before its pod runs out of power. It should have just enough power for you to take over it and then you can be with us again. Black, show him.”

Black projected an image on the sky. The image of a young Takashi Shirogane, black haired and unmarked by the horrors of war and violence.

For a moment all he could do was stare, barely daring to breathe. “They were all out of the beefed up models?”

Hunk started to justify their decision, but tapered off. Kuron’s longing was so palpable, they could probably feel it too.

He reached out a hand toward the image. It was so close.

He laid a single fingertip on the form, so light he could barely feel it. He let it trickle in, ready to cut it off the moment it felt wrong, but it felt so good. The new image took over his a little at a time, erasing scars as it traveled up his arm, bleeding across his chest and filling lungs with the memory of warm summer air. It smoothed the lines, earned and unearned, from his face and filled in the empty space to his right.

He stood for a long moment, savoring the feeling it represented: starting over with a fresh new face and a clean conscious. Being alive.

“No.”

And he released the illusion, because that’s all it ever was.

Pidge immediately started in with protests as if she’d anticipated his reluctance.

“It won’t be like last time, these bodies don’t hold any consciousness to displace, so you won’t be killing anyone.”

“Not that,” he said softly. It quieted her more effectively than a command. “When you first visited the Astral plane, you could barely stay a few moments. Now, you’re not just staying, you’re close to manipulating the environment. With you there, and me here, we’re thinning the veil between worlds.” With each word, his voice grew stronger.

“You don’t have to do that…”

“Think of the uses. You get separated and lose communication, come see me. I can help you find each other. Need to know where your enemy is? I can point her out right now.”

“But that would leave you stranded here…”

“If you’re fighting a particularly difficult enemy, I can pull their consciousness here so their body can’t act. I can teach you all the new tricks I inevitably learn here since I have nothing else to do but experiment. I promise to be a more entertaining trainer than the stiffer version of me. Most importantly, I can teach Keith how to test out the literal millions of hairstyles that aren’t mullets so he can find one he likes.”

They looked at each other for a moment, passing glances from one friend to the next. Finally it was Keith who spoke. “We could never ask you to give up so much, to put yourself in so much danger.”

“Of course not,” Kuron spat. “You would only ask that of real paladins.”

They at least had the decency to look abashed. He toned down his resentment which wouldn’t help anything.

“Each of you have given up so much for no other reason than you were the only person who could do something.”

But they weren’t giving up quite yet so he just plowed over their words.

“Too late. Your first lesson has already started,” he said. “Welcome to my housewarming party. I’m glad to see you all brought me gifts as per Earthly social expectations. Check out this great motivational poster Keith got me for my bedroom wall.”

He projected it from his imagination onto the sky: Keith as a Galra-purple kitten hanging by his paws from a Marmoran blade over the words “Hang in there, baby.”

Keith spluttered a little but Kuron didn’t allow him time to recover enough to say anything.

“And Hunk was nice enough to lend me his arm.” The image of Hunk’s arm disappeared from his body and onto Kuron’s shoulder, where it clashed in appearance with his other arm. “Thanks for loaning me one of your beefy arms. Can you imagine if I’d had to make due with one of Pidge’s?”

Hunk yelped but Kuron wasn’t finished yet.

“Don’t worry, I won’t care if you change your mind. Feel free to take your gift back and give me something else. And the rest of you better decide what to give me before I decide for you.”

Kuron smirked at the chaos he’d created. Hunk popped in and out of view, growling in frustration at his empty shoulder each time he returned to find it still missing. Keith kept trying to rip down the poster with hands that merely swept through the image. Lance repeatedly shot the sky with finger guns with no effect. Pidge locked her gaze on him with a terrifyingly intense wide eyed stare. He didn’t even want to know what kind of change she was trying to invoke.

“I’d like to try,” said Allura at his side. She stared down at her hands as a rectangular object shimmered into view. She watched it, brow furrowed in concentration until she nodded in satisfaction. “I believe this would also look nice on your ‘bedroom’ wall.”

She handed him a simple frame with a photograph of their group, all huddled in close and smiling.

She had one arm around Shiro’s shoulders and one around Kuron’s, even though they’d never existed together at the same time in life.

A tear burned in his eye that he wasn’t able to blink away before the others saw it.

“No fair,” he breathed, almost too soft for anyone to hear. “This was supposed to just be fun.”

As the others gathered around to see what she’d accomplished, Allura leaned in close and said just to him, “Are you sure about this? We don’t want you to make this decision because you worry about what will happen, or how we will treat you because of what transpired.”

If he were being honest with himself, that was a part of the reason. That huge of a change when he was just starting to figure things out scared him. But mostly, he just felt that it wasn’t the right step to take.

“I lived my entire life as Shiro, and to take this step would be one more attempt to go back to that. I need to slam this door shut because to go through it would be to lock myself into a world of disappointment. Just because I haven’t found the right door yet, doesn’t mean I won’t. I’m leaving that possibility open.”

Allura put an arm around his shoulder and pulled Shiro in on the other side. The rest took the cue to gather in close. The photo from Allura’s imagination became reality for just a moment. 

Until Kuron’s shirt turned pink. 

“I did it!” Squealed Pidge. “Happy housewarming, you jerk!” She gave him one of her a-little-too-evil-for-her-own-good smiles. “Don’t get too comfortable because once we save the universe, you know, again, we’re bringing you back to life.”

Kuron smiled, pulling them in close. 

“Yes,” he said. “Once this is over, I think I’d like to be alive again. For now, I’ll just be... you know what? I don’t even need a word for it.”

Surprisingly it felt right to chose nothing. Unlike before, when it brought him the peace of rejecting everything, this time it brought him a peace filled with possibilities. Because in choosing nothing, he was choosing anything. And that was enough for now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s all folks. Thanks for reading. 
> 
> May life treat you kindly and may good friends help during the times it doesn’t. 
> 
> If a kitten Keith “hang in there, baby” poster already exists in the fan art world, I’d love for someone to point me in the right direction.


End file.
